other Southern statesmen, courteous and pleasing in social conversation;
but is heartless, selfish, and malignant in his enmities.

Robert Toombs stood deservedly high in the traitorous cabal in the
Senate; for, to a bold and energetic spirit, great arrogance of manner,
and activity, he added a powerful mind and a clear head. In the street,
he would strike you as a self-conceited, bullying, contemptuous person,
with brains in the inverse proportion to his body, which was large and
apparently strong. His manner, when addressing the Senators, had indeed
much of an overbearing and insolent spirit; but the impression, in
regard to his character, after hearing him speak, was much better than
before. There was an indication of strength behind the bullying,
blustering air which he put on, which raised one's respect for his
attainments. One of the most rabid and uncompromising of secession
leaders, and bigoted in his hatred of the North, he was yet, in private,
a courteous and hospitable gentleman, and, apparently at least, frank in
the expression of opinion. Probably he had as little principle in
political and social life as most of his associates in treason; while
his great self-reliance, activity, and mental ability gave him a very
high position in their confidence. He was tall and stout, though not
corpulent; and was very negligent of his toilet and dress. Self-conceit
was written on his countenance, and displayed itself in his arrogant
assumptions of superiority. But his method of dealing with his Northern
opponents was open and bold, although insolent and overbearing, and not
like Hunter, Davis, and Benjamin, using ingenious sophistry and hidden
sarcasm, cautiously smoothing over their real purpose, by rhetoric and
elegant sentiment. Mr. Toombs became early an object of peculiar dislike
to Northern men, by the rude ingenuousness with which he announced the
last conclusions of his political creed, and the intolerable insolence
with which, not heeding the admonitions of his more cautious